Page 34 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

Thankfully, Hannah has always been easily distracted by romance. She’s a pushover when it comes to that stuff.

With her derailed, I grimly face my destiny in Claudia’s text thread.

Me:Fine. I’ll be there.

Claudia:10 minutes.

Me:What happened to 15??

Claudia:Tick-tock.

I groan and reluctantly ditch my comfy outfit to put on a pair of jean shorts, socks, and shoes. And then I have another thought. If Claudia’s going to be so pushy, thenshecan take the dogs.

“Come on, fellas,” I say, and the dogs scramble to their feet. “You’re going to stay with Aunt Claudia.”

Chapter 11

I don’t usually take the back stairs. They’re a little too “condemned building” for my taste, but: desperate times.

I lock the back door behind me, and then the guys and I slowly make our way down the creaky wooden stairs, descending past 2C (who recently wreaked havoc on the building’s pipes with his colonoscopy prep, a fact I wish I did not know, thanks, Roy), and then past 1C (where Roy’s own dangerous-looking hammock chair collects mold). The four of us creep through the back gate into the alley, and while I wouldn’t exactly call the dogs chill, I’m glad we’re at least all moving in the same direction.

As soon as we turn the corner onto the sidewalk, though, they start straining at their leashes and wheeze-panting and yanking me almost out of my shoes. I can see Claudia up there on my corner wearing a thankfully unfamiliar (and clean) lemon-yellow bucket hat.

But as we close in, it becomes clear that the dogs are fangirling about the person she’s with: a surprisingly hot guy closer to my age, with a nice set of exposed forearms and impressive pecs that arecurrently fighting for their life against his T-shirt. For a moment, this whole Claudia thing has a silver lining. Me, a down-on-her-luck crossing guard and him, a stupid-hot city lumberjack! What a classic meet-cute! My recently dumped brain can’t help but imagine us telling the story of how we met: Brought together by conspiracy and tragedy! Adorable! Sad! Sexy!

I’ll admit, two crushes in two days makes me feel like a massive traitor, but until Chris wakes up from this nightmare and realizes he made a terrible mistake, maybe a crush here and there is okay?

The dogs drag me over, the guy takes his index finger and points down, and holy shit, all three dogs sit obediently in a line in front of him.

Extra hot.

Apparently I’m not the only dog wizard in town. He squats down and pets them, while they nuzzle him affectionately.

“How did youdothat?” I ask as he appears to inspect them.

“Did anyone follow you?” Claudia asks, trying her best to interrupt my fantasy where this guy falls for me right here on this street corner, and I have to tell him that I already have an imaginary government girlfriend and an actual boyfriend, at least as soon as that boyfriend comes to his senses.

Ooooh, maybe all three of them will fight over me. Could happen.

“I wasn’t checking,” I say.

“Amateur,” she mumbles.

“Look, Claudia,” I say, as diplomatically as possible. “I’m a crossing guard because I need insurance. Like, health care. I’m just trying to live my life. Please don’t put me in charge of a so-called murder investigation.”

“In charge?” she scoffs. “Not on your life. You’re lackey material.”

“Well, thank you, I think,” I say.

The guy stands up from where he’s been playing with the dogs,brushes his hands off on the thighs of his,phew, really nice-fitting jeans, and in addition to that and the forearms, he’s got these bright green-blue eyes, and—

He thrusts half a pepperoni in my face. “Did you feed these dogspepperoni? Are youkiddingme?”

Hmm. Maybe we could do, like, an enemies-to-lovers sort of thing.

“The dog food hasn’t been delivered yet,” I say, flirting. Fine, I’m a bit rusty.

“Pepperoniisdangerousfor dogs,” he says passionately. He points at them dramatically. “Claudia, on top of everything else, we now also have anattemptedmurder on our hands.”